Tag: Family Travel

Dorl Family Trip to Iceland – The Finale

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

By the time I woke the next day, the storm had broken. Kaye went outside to use the bathroom and when she came back told us it was a beautiful day. I went outside with Gwen, and we were both awestruck by the beauty of the morning—a fresh, pristine layer of snow covered everything, including the mountains that surrounded us, which were bathed in pastel orange and pink light by the rising sun. Both of us spontaneously exclaimed—“Ohhhhh!”—and then were rendered speechless by the beauty (though our camper and the others that had stopped there for the night were half covered in icy precipitation and looked like they’d been through a war).
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June 12, 2026
Dorl Family Trip to Iceland Part 7 (of 9)

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Billy turned out to be a good bedmate and I slept soundly that night. At one point in the middle of the night, though, I awoke and found him sleeping across the bed, his legs dangling horizontally off one side, and I roused him enough to get him sleeping vertically again. I later gathered that Kaye and Gwen didn’t get along so well—Gwen is a notoriously “active” sleeper, often rotating her body around 180 degrees over the course of the night, which is the main reason that I usually wind up sleeping with her, and Kaye with Billy (the other reason being that Gwen is a major “daddy’s girl”).
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June 5, 2026
Dorl Family Trip to Iceland Part 6 (of 9)

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I woke up in the middle of the night needing to pee and made my way through the darkened campground to the bathrooms. It was a clear night and I stared up at the stars, bright in the sky. I soon noticed eerie, greenish, glowing cloud-like formations in the sky and realized I was looking at the elusive Northern Lights. I stood under them, taking them in, until the chill of the night drove me back into the camper. My jostling as I climbed out of my coat and shoes woke up Kaye, who went out to use the bathroom and came back in and woke the kids to look up at the Northern Lights.
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June 1, 2026
Dorl Family Trip to Iceland Part 5 (of 9)

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We were still snowed in at Glacier World, in Hoffel, the next morning. Kaye came into Gwen’s and my bedroom at 6 to tell me that the ice cave tour had again been put off. I wasn’t surprised given the howling winds that raged outside all night. I lapsed back into sleep, only to be awakened by the sound of heavy scraping right outside our room—hotel management was finally shoveling the steps, which had been extremely perilous the day before. Kaye came back into the room a little after that and told us that the roads were closed again, so we would hang at the hotel and see how the weather developed.
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May 29, 2026
Dorl Family Trip To Iceland, Part 4 (of 9)

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I woke at 7 AM that morning. Billy had taken the “center position” between me and Kaye and had clung to me all night, curling his small body next to mine. I was crowded and wary of rolling over onto him, so it wasn’t the greatest night’s sleep; but still, he’s such a loving boy I couldn’t fault him that much.

It had snowed overnight and now a fresh layer of snow covered the dangerous ice I’d almost fallen on the night before; ironically the new layer of snow made my path a little less treacherous, as the snow had sufficient “give” to create additional traction as I crossed the lot
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May 26, 2026
Dorl Family Trip to Iceland (Part 2 of 9)

Part 1

Our flight took off on Friday, March 20, at around 8:45 and was about a 6-hour flight, meaning we’d be landing at 2:45 AM our time (but Iceland is about 5 hours ahead in time zone, so we landed at 7 AM local time). Gwen mostly slept beside me; I probably caught a couple hours of sleep before landing in…

ICELAND! The descent was instructive as to the nature of the country; out of my window, I saw a snowy, mountainous landscape with a few sparse, thin ribbons of light—highways cutting through the darkened landscape—and a smattering of modest, barracks-like buildings. I thought what a contrast this approach was, with its scant evidence of human habitation, with the vast orange grid that one sees on the descent into the Chicagoland area.
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May 18, 2026
Dorl Family Trip to Iceland (Part 1 of 9)
For Spring Break 2026 (March 20-28, 2026), the Dorl family headed to Iceland and went sightseeing in a camper van. Our family, from oldest to youngest, consisted of:
- Ray, age 50: working as a lawyer, interests at the time included lifting weights (a passion that he would inflict on his family during the trip) and learning guitar (ditto, wielding a travel guitar that was a persistent pain in the ass to stow away in the camper van).
- Kaye, age 46: working as an in-house lawyer for a medical technology company; interests at the time included yoga (which she really didn’t get to do during the trip) and learning bass guitar.
- Gwen, age 9: in fourth grade; outside activities included dance team and playing piano. The owner of a vast array of stuffed animals (or “stuffies,” as we term them), she traveled with a pretty light complement of stuffies by her standards: just her shiny blue and silver Narwhal named Bo-boo, her stuffed bunny named Jelly, and a stuffed polar bear named Peanut Butter. She also traveled with her beloved “monkey blanky,” a small blanket decorated with monkeys that she had owned since she was an infant.
- Billy, age 7: in first grade, outside activities included tae kwon do, basketball, and playing guitar. A precocious lad, he had a vast trove of knowledge concerning the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and had recently become an afficionado of caramel lattes (decaffeinated only, at his parents’ insistence) and clamored after his favorite beverage at every stop.
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May 11, 2026